The Iraq war officially ended today, though 4,000 troops still remain. Joel Wing is keeping tabs on the retrospectives popping up in the media. Daniel Serwer laments the costs:
No, Iraq has not been “worth it.” Even a majority of its veterans don’t believe that. President Bush launched the war believing that there were weapons of mass destruction. That in any event was the only argument that really held water. Neither Saddam Hussein’s marginal role in supporting international terrorism nor his gross mistreatment of the Iraqi people would have garnered the broad support that the Bush Administration managed to assemble for the invasion.
The Iraqi toll is huge: more than 100,000 killed seems to be the consensus. The American toll, though much smaller, is deeply felt: almost 4500 killed and more than 33,000 wounded, not counting civilians. In a decade of financial collapse the economic costs, projected to reach trillions, cannot be ignored.
Brian Michelson and Sean Walsh draw lessons from our failures as nation-builders there. Zakaria isn't convinced we're really leaving:
They are, in a sense, disguising the drawdown so it is not a drawdown quite to zero. We have some paramilitary forces, some who are protecting the embassy, embassy personnel, USAID people. There's going to be a fairly healthy contingent, I'm sure, of CIA people. There'll be people from the DEA. You add that together and the United States will have a certain kind of offensive presence in Iraq.
Reider Vissar notes some trouble signs in the debate over the Iraqi constitution. Marc Lynch thinks the pullout heralds a better Middle East. Teddy Spain reflects on his experience fighting in the country.
(Photo: U.S. Army soldiers from the 2-82 Field Artillery, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, walk to where they will board buses to fly home to Fort Hood, Texas after being one of the last American combat units to exit from Iraq on December 15, 2011 at Camp Virginia, near Kuwait City, Kuwait. Today the U.S. military formally ended its mission in Iraq after eight years of war and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. By Joe Raedle/Getty Images.)
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